RE3: Walsh v. Carnegie Library, Docket AP 2009-1150
From: "Glenn A.
Walsh" < gawalsh@andrewcarnegie.cc
>
To: "AudreyBuglione"
< abuglione@state.pa.us >
Cc: "David Tessitor" < dave@davetessitor.com >, "David
Tessitor" < davetessitor@pghfree.net
>, "Carolyn D.Duronio" < CDuronio@ReedSmith.com >,
"Glenn A. Walsh" < gawalsh@andrewcarnegie.cc >
To: Audrey
Buglione
From: Glenn A. Walsh
Copy: Carolyn D. Duronio, Reed Smith LLP
David Tessitor
Subject: Additional Comments II - Statute of 1887 enabling Pennsylvania cities
to fund public
libraries
In my last message of 2010 January 25, I wrote:
> In the "Position Paper on Behalf of the Carnegie Library of
> Pittsburgh," it is also stated: "The Library similarly fails
> to qualify as a “local agency”. At that time of the
> Library’s creation in 1890, there was no statute pursuant
> to which the Library could have been created."
>
> That is not true. Several years prior to the 1890 February
> 25 creation of the Carnegie Free Libraries of the City of
>
>
> His offer would have required the City to fund the library
> with a minimum annual subsidy of $15,000.
>
> At that time, the City Solicitor ruled that Cities of the
> Second Class (of which
> State) had no authority to use tax funds for a public
> library. Consequently, Andrew Carnegie's kind offer at that
> time had to be declined.
>
> In the next few years, the City asked the General Assembly
> to enact a law that permitted Cities of the Second Class to
> use tax funds for funding public libraries. This was
> accomplished, allowing the City to ask Andrew Carnegie to
> renew his offer.
>
> Ironically, Andrew Carnegie refused to renew the $250,000
> offer to build a library for the city. In those few years,
> he saw that the city had grown so much, that, instead, he
> offered one million
dollars to build a library system for
> the city, including several branch libraries. With this
> offer, he did require the city to provide an annual subsidy
> of no less than $40,000. This is the offer that was
> gratefully accepted by the City of
> February 25.
>
> So, by 1890 February 25, the Pennsylvania General Assembly
> had enacted a statute pursuant to which the Library could
> have been created.
The legislation I was referring to is 1887 Pa. Laws 118:
"No. 118
"AN ACT
Empowering any city in this Commonwealth to take and hold donations of money, books,
real and personal property, for the purpose of a free library in said city, and
to make appropriations to maintain the same.
"Section 1. Be it enacted, &c., That it shall
be competent for any incorporated city within this Commonwealth and the same is
hereby empowered to take and hold any grant or donation of money, books and
manuscripts, or property, real or personal, for the purpose of establishing a
free library within the limits of such corporation, and to make provision, by
annual appropriation, for the maintenance of such free library.
"APPROVED: The 23d day of May, A.D. 1887.
JAMES A. BEAVER."
gaw
Glenn A. Walsh, Project Director,
Friends of the Zeiss < http://friendsofthezeiss.org
>
Electronic Mail - < gawalsh@planetarium.cc >
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